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Filibuster from "Democracy Means Fair Employment Practices" Pamphlet (image via Tobias Higbie)
Most of the AP’s “facts” rely on the totally false claim that it takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass a law. From the AP:
[Herman] Cain recognizes that for the law to be repealed, Congress must act. But presidents don’t set the congressional calendar, and even if Republicans can secure a 60-vote majority that gives them control of the Senate, the train of legislation seldom runs on schedule.
And in reference to Romney’s promise to use reconciliation to repeal the law the AP wrote this comically wrong “fact”
THE FACTS: This is a strategy to undermine the law by starving it of money. Its only real chance is if Republicans win congressional majorities as well as the presidency or at the very least a rash of improbable Democratic defections in Congress.
Although not a single-day project, it represents one threat to Obama’s law, if one with political risk and tough odds. Some core parts of the law are not dependent on annual budgeting.
Going beyond the budget process to repeal the law in full is an even steeper climb. It would require a larger Republican congressional majority to move forward and to clinch 60 votes in the Senate – all this as the law increasingly takes root in the nation’s medical and insurance system.
The idea that it actually takes 60 vote to pass a bill in the Senate is one of the most insidious myths in American politics. The 60 vote threshold is a totally made up restriction and can be eliminated in 10 minutes by a simple majority of senators if they want to.
While the current Senate rules do require 60 votes to end debate to prevent a filibuster, there is nothing magical or sacrosanct about the rules. At the beginning of new Congress a simple majority of senators could adopt new rules. Also at any point during the legislative session a simple majority of senators can decide to adopt a new interpretation of the Senate’s rules, this new interpretation could prevent a filibuster from stopping a majority from voting on a bill. It is critical to remember that the only people with the authority to say what the Senate rules do and do not allow is a majority of senators.
It is a lie on the part of the AP to imply it would take 60 voters to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If the GOP wins a small majority in the Senate (between 50-59 seats) and they are fully determined to get rid of the law, they have the ability to quickly change the Senate rules so they can pass the repeal with only a simple majority.
There may be reasons the GOP makes the decision that passing the repeal is not worth permanently changing the Senate rules, but there is nothing actually stopping them. It is a choice they have the power to make, they don’t need 60 votes.
In addition, the article seems to have no understanding how reconciliation works. To begin with, if a simple majority is willing to push the envelope with reconciliation they can technically repeal the whole law with it. Even without bending the rules reconciliation has nothing to do with “annual budgeting” as the article implies. The Byrd Rule says reconciliation should only be used on things that affect spending and revenue but there is no restriction regarding annual budgeting verse mandatory spending.
Instead of the media spreading myths about how powerless our politicians are to change anything, it should tell the American people what they actually could do if they wanted to. The American people deserve to know the truth that our politicians can actually fulfill many of their promises and that they are simply choosing not to. The media role should not be to help the powerful hide behind their false excuses. Let’s not treat made up procedure rules as serious impediments to the people who have the power to change any time they want.
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That is a myth that the republicans need a “60″ vote majority, for republicans all’s that’s needed is a 50 vote plurality w/ a republican VP.
It’s the democrats that claim the 60 vote majority is needed.
Just a picky note: a myth is by definition untrue or false.
Therefore spreading false myths is redundant.
Aside from that, good piece.
DWD from Eschaton
This myth’s roots are deep. I keep having to remind people that the healthcare bill ultimately passed in the Senate on a simple majority reconciliation vote.
From MSNBC:
The president spoke in Iowa as the Senate voted 56-43 for legislation making changes, including better benefits for seniors and low-income and middle-class families, to the bill he signed into law with a flourish at the White House on Tuesday.
“…it represents one threat to Obama’s law”
It is also inaccurate propaganda to call the thing “Obama’s law”. He is the President not a legislature unto himself. Congress made this law.
the filibuster “rule” does mean it takes 60 votes, we see that ever day as bill after bill fails even though it gets 51 votes.
whether the Dems if they fall into the minority will return the favor and filibuster every bill is open to question, but they should and must and make it impossible for the Republicans to govern as the ERepubs have done to the Dems. maybe when they get a taste of their own tactics they will stop the BS and we can get back to business. but if the Dems don’t return the favor and block everything in retaliation then they are done as a party as they will never be able to pass a bill again.
Your math is correct, sir.
It was also a myth that Scott Brown’s election would stop ACA in its tracks because of the new numbers. Most folks believed so.
Yet there are ALWAYS workarounds for the PTB. There must have been a few days of scrambling, however, when it became apparent that Coakley would likely lose. What a short fuse that was.
I’d bet even the “deem and pass” trope could have occurred had it absolutely needed to.
I don’t hope for a GOP Senate, but want ACA outta here and a move-on, eventually, to single payer which will admittedly take a long time. SCOTUS and the mandate is my favorite method.
Otherwise if the GOP is to get the Senate and WH — then just 50 seats including one or two bribed blue dog flips, like another Jeffords. Add the VP to boot. Then use reconciliation successfully against ACA, but on the flimsiest of grounds.
Poetic justice, there. I’ll savor the purple rage it causes — just the notion of such a spectacle makes life worth living.
David Ray Griffin elaborates on the distinction between of myth and Myth.
http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/08/911-myth-and-reality
Go look in the CR. Bush’s tax cut passed with a vote of 50-50 with Cheney breaking the tie.
Ah, but senate traditions are sooo much more important than the people’s business.
Well, these guys fooled me for a long time and I still am not sure it is any other way.
Another falsity is that the republicans (whether they’re in the legislative, judicial, or executive branch) will repeal “Obamacare” one way or another. The mandate is a conservative concoction. The only things that will get repealed are things like CLASS — and the subsidies will get cut. Not eliminated, because that would be too blatant an injustice and too many would wake up. The subsidies will end up barely covering more people than medicaid covers. Some paid forum shills will go to various political sites and claim that a relative’s life was saved by the ever so slightly more available subsidy, and guilt the weak minded into accepting this massive corporate handout.